The present invention is broadly concerned with keeping track of the location, status, degree of utilization and condition and operability of widely geographically dispersed fleets of vehicular construction equipment and the like, using the resources of satellite positioning and communication Internet facilities to provide the fleet owner with displays of such information to enable the capability of utilizing the information, suitably processed, on periodically provided schedule, or upon specific request, to monitor and improve fleet utilization, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness; and, more particularly, to the maintenance or service of such remote equipment with maintenance vehicles servicing the construction sites, and tracking and displaying also the location and operation of the maintenance vehicles and personnel together with the positional information on the equipment vehicles.
In the earlier co-pending U.S. patent application of the common assignee of the present invention, Ser. No. 09/416,604 filed Oct. 12, 1999, for Method Of And Apparatus For Remotely Monitoring The Location Status, Utilization And Condition Of Widely Geographically Dispersed Fleets Of Vehicular Construction Equipment And The Like And Providing And Displaying Such Information, a system is disclosed that uses satellite positioning and communication Internet facilities for remotely monitoring heavy construction equipment and other expensive mobile assets. One of the numerous uses of the system is, as earlier indicated, to enable the owners and operators of construction vehicles more efficiently to maintain their fleet. By capturing, for example, the actual engine run-hours and knowing where the equipment is located, the maintenance managers can automatically know when and where to service their construction vehicles.
Because the construction equipment is large and not easily moved, much of the scheduled maintenance is performed at the construction sites requiring that the maintenance vehicle and service personnel must be dispatched to the sites. The concepts of said copending application address the status of the construction equipment; but they do not address the status of the maintenance vehicles and personnel. The current invention now provides such an added function through the integration of a real-time tracking capability installed on the maintenance vehicles,
As disclosed in said copending application, a construction equipment vehicular equipment transponder-satellite data communication link system is provided wherein information sent by transponders of vehicular equipments of a widely geographically dispersed fleet of equipments is relayed by the data satellite to a ground station and thence via the Internet to an information-processing center. The system uses on-board sensors for inputting to the transponders at each equipment of the fleet, locally sensed parameter data such as temperature, run hours, fuel level, battery voltage and/or other equipment engine parameters. Upon each equipment transponder receiving GPS location signals from the GPS satellite, the transponder is caused to transmit to the data satellite information as to its location and as to said locally sensed data, and such information is relayed from the data satellite to a ground station and thence, via the Internet, to said center. Signal processing is provided at the center for processing the relayed information to effect one or more of geographical and tabular location display of the widely dispersed equipments and/or for optionally selected equipments, and optionally selected parameters, limits and conditions of such equipments, to provide processed information suitable to exercise management analysis of equipment utilization and operational efficiency. Such processed information is then communicated to the fleet manager for enabling improving the efficiency of such equipment utilization and operation.
In accordance with the present invention, the maintenance vehicles and personnel attending or assigned to attend the needs at the remote construction vehicles sites are also tracked. Each maintenance vehicle is provided with an on-board GPS receiver and a satellite communications terminal, and periodically reports its position to the same data processing center facility that stores and processes the information on the construction equipment vehicles. This reporting from the maintenance vehicles, in accordance with this invention, occurs very frequently when the maintenance vehicle is in motion, but much less frequently or occasionally when the vehicle is stopped. The software then simultaneously displays to the fleet maintenance manager the status of both the construction equipment to be serviced and the status of the maintenance vehicles.
While the providing of GPS location systems for service vehicles by itself is not new, it is the integration of the two functions in the manner of this invention (i.e. of information on the vehicles requiring service together with the information on the vehicles for performing such service) that is now provided By integrating these two functions with the GeoFencing feature described in said copending application, furthermore, one can automatically keep track of how much time the service technicians spend traveling and how much time they spend on the job site. This feature is very useful to service organizations that provide third party maintenance and need to know how many hours to bill for the services performed.
The primary object of the present invention, accordingly, is to provide a new and improved method of and system and apparatus for integrating remote maintenance vehicle and service personnel tracking information with the information resulting from the remote monitoring of location, status, utilization and condition of widely geographically dispersed fleets of vehicular construction equipment and the like that require such maintenance and service.
A further object is to provide a novel user-friendly integrated display of information on both the equipment vehicles requiring service and the maintenance vehicles dispatched to perform such services.
Other and further objects are also later pointed out and are hereinafter more particularly delineated in the appended claims.
In summary, however, from one of its broader aspects, the invention embraces in a system for remotely monitoring the location, status, utilization and condition of widely geographically dispersed fleets of vehicular construction equipment, by using the resources of satellite positioning, wireless data communication and Internet facilities, and processing and displaying such information for use by fleet managers and the like, a method of integrating maintenance vehicle and service personnel information into such displaying of the location of the vehicular construction equipment, that comprises, displaying the construction equipment location information; integrating into such displaying, the simultaneous displaying of satellite positioning-derived location information of the maintenance vehicles servicing said equipment at the respective equipment sites through real-time tracking using said resources and processing; and further displaying the recent tracks as well as the present locations of such maintenance vehicles.
Preferred and best mode designs are later detailed.